


self-care days

by halomoji



Category: Mystic Messenger, Mystic Messenger (Video Game)
Genre: Platonic Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-13
Updated: 2020-02-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 04:02:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,344
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22687420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halomoji/pseuds/halomoji
Summary: Saeran has a rough night. Luckily, you have the patience of a saint and nail polish in every color of the rainbow.
Relationships: Choi Saeran & Main Character, Choi Saeran/Main Character, Choi Saeran/Reader, it's platonic but they don't have tags for that :sweats:
Comments: 13
Kudos: 146





	self-care days

Early morning is by far your favorite time of day. 

The sunrise paints the sky shades of yellows and reds, dew shimmers on the grass, the birds sing the world awake; it always makes you feel so alive. You’re up early every morning anyway, but you have a Sunday morning self-care ritual you carry out religiously every week, no matter what.

One of these days, you’ve decided, you’re going to get Saeran to join you. 

You’ve asked him about it two or three times before, gently broaching the subject when you think he’s most likely to accept, but he’s so stubborn that you begin to wonder if he wants to and just doesn’t know how to say yes.

It’s just after seven a.m. this Sunday morning and you’ve already taken up position in the huge window seat Saeyoung installed for you, windows thrown open to let in the breeze, sunlight streaming into the room. Your hair is pulled up into a messy bun, and you’re wearing an old white too-big pajama shirt that’s covered in paint stains and says “Beauty Queen” in cursive letters. Scattered around you are various jars of nail polish, a bottle of remover, and a small container of q-tips and cotton balls. There’s a bowl of grapes to your right.  _ Korea’s Next Top Model _ is playing on the television. 

You’re almost convinced this is what heaven’s like. 

To top it all off, you’re quick to discover that today isn’t a day where Saeran essentially falls off the face of the Earth. He stumbles into the living room as you finish painting your toenails, nose immediately wrinkling at the smell of fresh polish. “Can’t you pick a hobby that doesn’t reek?”

“Good morning, Saeran,” you chirp in response. “Hungry already?”

He’s already out of your view now, somewhere in the kitchen banging around the cabinets. “Didn’t eat last night.”

You frown, screwing the lid back on the bottle of dark bubblegum pink polish. You hate when he doesn’t eat. It usually only comes with his low moods. “Do you want me to make something for you?”

“Nope,” comes his reply, accompanied by the sound of the microwave slamming shut. 

You climb unsteadily to your feet and hobble to the kitchen, careful not to smudge the polish on your toes. “Whatcha makin’?”

Saeran holds up a box of frozen waffles and your brain screeches to a halt.

“...in the  _ microwave _ ?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s disgusting! They’ll be all soggy!”

“Look,” he says, turning to face you. The bags under his eyes are purple and much more pronounced than normal. “I don’t tell you how to live. Go back to your shitty fashion shows.”

You hold your hands up in defeat, not at all offended. “Alright, alright. Enjoy your filthy waffles. There’s whipped cream and cherries in the fridge near the back.”

“No, there’s not. Saeyoung always eats all the cherries.”

“That’s why I put your name on the jar,” you call over your shoulder before hopping back up onto the window seat. The faint grumbling that reaches your ears makes you smile. A few minutes later, you see Saeran cross back towards his room, a plate in hand and a glass jar under his arm. 

He doesn’t return until you’ve finished one hand and are halfway done with the other. They’re a pale, glittery yellow, with your ring finger the same pink as your toenails. You watch him out of the corner of your eye as he goes into the kitchen...and then doesn’t re-emerge even after several long, quite minutes pass. Curious, you decide to investigate.

Saeran’s sat at the kitchen table, head in his hands and eyes scrunched shut. His chest heaves as if he isn’t getting enough air. You gasp and hurry to his side, laying a hand gently on his shoulder. He pulls away violently, growling at you not to touch him, and you immediately take a step back to give him space.

Saeran’s attacks aren’t exactly news to you, but you’ve never had to help him through one on your own. Still, since Saeyoung’s away with Yoosung on some gaming event, you have no choice but to try.

Hesitantly, you ask, “Saeran? What’s wrong?”

All Saeran does is shake his head and curl a little tighter into himself, fingers tangling his already messy hair into knots. A pained whine escapes him. There’s no time to call Saeyoung and wait for his orders, so you push past your own rising worry to dig into past times this has happened and how Saeyoung guided his twin through it.

You slide carefully into the chair beside Saeran, lowering your voice to just above a whisper. “Okay, Saeran. I think this is a panic attack, right? I need you to take a breath for me. Real deep. Can you do that? If I count, will that help?”

You can’t be sure but you think he nods, so you start counting, instructing him to inhale and exhale on five. You go through the motions together until he’s no longer close to hyperventilating.

You sigh quietly in relief. “Good job, Saeran. It’ll be okay. You’re in a safe place, y’know?”

He doesn’t reply, but his grip on his hair loosens. He’s started shaking, though, which sends another pang through your heart.

You hold a hand out to him, palm up on the table in a silent offering. His hand twitches, disentangles from his hair, and he tentatively lowers it onto yours. After a few seconds of you holding your breath and not moving, Saeran fully grips your hand. You squeeze his in return. “I promise, Saeran, I won’t let anything happen to you. You’re safe here.”

You sit with him at the table for at least ten minutes, whispering words of comfort and reassurance, before Saeran finally retracts his hand. You let him go reluctantly, anxiously waiting for him to say something.

“...thanks.”

“Of course. Do you feel better?”

He nods, not meeting your eyes.

“Good.” You push away from the table. “Do you want to come sit with me while I finish my nails? You can have the TV.”

Still, he says nothing, but he does follow suit and rise from the table. You walk into the living room with Saeran trailing behind. Unexpectedly, he sits on the floor beside the window seat, back pressed against it. You don’t comment on it, you just unscrew the yellow polish and gets back to work.

Saeran channel surfs for a while, but eventually puts the TV back on your shows and shifts to watch you put the top coat on your nails. You look down at him as you’re putting the lid on the clear polish, a fond smile spreading across your face. You gesture to the collection of nail polish laid out before you. “Want me to do yours?”

He looks at you like you just grew a second head, physically recoiling. “No,” he answers automatically. But you see the way his brow creases and the way he glances at the rainbow of bottles. “...you don’t have to.”

Your entire face lights up. “Oh, don’t be silly! I love painting nails! I do Saeyoung’s all the time, even though he tears it all off while he’s working.” You cross your legs and scoot backwards, dragging all the nail supplies with you, and say, “C’mon up.”

He crawls up onto the seat and out of your shadow, the sun illuminating the pensive expression on his face, and sits cross-legged in front of you. He’s hunched over, uncertain and kind of embarrassed, while you’re over the moon that he’s letting you do this.

“What kind do you want? I’ve got tons of colors in glitter, matte,  _ iridescent _ ,” you say that one with a dramatic flourish to your voice, “I’ve got some that look like cracked glass, some that have texture to them...”

“Um.” You take the wide-eyed expression on Saeran’s face to mean he’s quickly getting overwhelmed, so you rein it back in.

“Sorry. Want me to choose?”

“Yeah.”

You push a few bottles around to inspect colors, trying to judge which would look best on him, and eventually settle on a minty green. You hold it up to him. “This one would match your eyes, aaand... it glows in the dark. Cool, huh?”

Saeran doesn’t know how to reply outside of “Yeah, I guess,” which is good enough for you. 

“Alright, give me your hand. We gotta start with a clear coat first.”

Saeran does so, and comfortable silence falls over the two of you as you work. The warmth from the window combined with the droning of the television is enough to make Saeran drowsy. He does actually doze off at one point, snapping awake and pulling his hand away from you. Green polish streaks across his fingers and the brush slips from your hand, marking your leg and the towel you laid out on the cushion. 

Shaking his head furiously to drive away the sleepiness, Saeran hisses a curse under his breath and tries to grab the brush, but you swat his hand away. 

“Don’t, you’ll ruin your fingers! Hang on, I’ll fix it.” You spend a couple of minutes rubbing off the stray paint from both yourself and Saeran, then reach for his hand again. “Stay still this time.”

Saeran nods, apology stuck in his throat.

“Did you get any sleep last night?” You ask with attempted casualty. You hope you don’t sound accusatory; judging from his very tired state, you imagine he didn’t sleep much, if at all.

“No,” he says with a bit of a groan, probably awaiting your inevitable lecture about how sleep is important and  _ blah blah blah _ .

But you don’t start in on him, you just hum in acknowledgment. And you leave it at that. 

“Too many nightmares.” Saeran doesn’t know why he felt the need to say that and he chastises himself for it as soon as the words leave his lips. 

You huff out an empathetic laugh. “Yeah. I can relate.” You finish the first color coat on his hand and release him, motioning for his other hand. “Careful not to smudge those. Rest your hand on the windowsill. Do you want to talk about them?”

As instructed, he gives you his unpainted hand and lets the other dry in the heat of the morning sun. Again, on instinct, he declines your offer of help, and again, you don’t push him. Maybe that’s why he keeps wanting to talk.

“...Do you think she’ll ever come back?” His eyes are focused strictly on the hand you’re painting, bangs obscuring his eyes. 

Sorrow fills your chest; you wonder if that was what his attack and nightmares were about. You sigh heavily, scraping a bit of stray paint off his skin with your nail and rubbing it on a napkin. “Honestly, I don’t know. I hope not. But I don’t know.”

His shoulders are tense as he says, “oh.” You know that’s not what he wants to hear, but you won’t lie to him. You don’t pause in your painting, don’t want to make a scene out of anything, but your words are firm. “I swear on my life, Saeran, that if she does come back around here, she will not come anywhere near you. I’ll go toe-to-toe with that woman before she ever even looks at you.”

Saeran snorts, which is the last thing you expected. “You wouldn’t stand a chance.”

You raise an eyebrow, finally able to meet his eyes. He looks...troubled. Solemn. Afraid? You can’t quite pin it down. “You calling me a wimp?”

“I’m calling you an idiot who underestimates the dirty tactics of a cult leader who controlled everyone through fear and manipulation.”

“Hm. Maybe so,” you admit, dipping the brush in polish and starting on his pinky finger. “But I would do anything to protect you and the RFA from her. Had I any say in it, she would’ve been behind bars for the rest of her life, not living it up with penguins in fucking Alaska.” You’ve never talked like this about Rika, or anything for that matter, and the venom in your voice surprises Saeran. Something tells him that you’re being entirely honest, too.

He can’t find it in him to reply, so you continue.

“Like, I’m a pacifist, but I would absolutely beat the hell out of her if given the opportunity.” You replace the lid on the bottle and sit up straighter to crack your spine. “No one deserved what she did to them. Least of all you.”

Saeran shrugs noncommittally, both hands now on the windowsill. His stomach feels twisted, but he tries to take some comfort in your words instead of the thoughts Rika implanted in him. He also  _ really _ wants this conversation to end, so he holds out his left hand under his right arm towards you. “Are these dry?”

You gingerly checks all five nails, then nod. “Yup! I’ll have to put another coat on it before the top coat, though.”

“Whatever you say.”

Because you and Saeyoung are both extremely talkative people, there’s rarely an extended quiet time between you both. But sitting around with Saeran like this, you find that the silences that come with his company are very relaxing. You sit and listen to the television all through the last two coats on Saeran’s nails with almost no conversation. By the end of it, Saeran seems to be a little bit brighter than he was; you can tell because his sarcasm is back in full force.

“So what do you think? Do you like them?” You ask as Saeran examines his nails.

“I think it smells like complete shit in here.”

You scoff and throw a long forgotten grape at him, bouncing it off his nose. “Be serious!”

Saeran rolls his eyes. “They’re  _ gorgeous _ , thank you  _ so much _ .”

You giggle. “God, I do not like you.”

“The feeling’s mutual.”

“Next week, then?”

“Not a chance.” 

When Sunday rolls around again, you’re delighted to see Saeran waiting by the window seat.


End file.
